Texas A&M has both a men's club and a women's varsity team
University of Texas has a club
James Madison has something but I don't know whether it is a recognized team sport or simply a club (??)

WHAT OTHER COLLEGES OR UNIVERSITIES HAVE ACTIVE ARCHERY OF ANY KIND?

I'm interested in hearing about both those in the US as well as abroad - are you actively supported by your school, or merely just tolerated.

How many attend your meetings, how often do you meet, do you charge fees, supply equipment?

Well, since I'm currently coaching the University of Washington Archery club, and am an ex-University archer from the University of Edinburgh, I sort of feel qualified to respond.

At the UW, we have an intra-mural programme (sorry, program, it is the US after all) which is fairly well supported. In the last couple of years, we have been trying to get more participation in competition. Unfortunately, because of the bizarre setup of US archery, we are competing mostly in Canada, because it's closer and more convenient than the US. We will probably have a team at the west coast collegiates in Stanford in April for the first time in years.

A related problem is that the archery club and the intra-mural association are separate, and the money is separately accountable. Intral-mural money must be used on activity benefitting the free activities. Club money is used for club activities, however because the accounting is closed out as soon as possible after term finishes, the money is not usable during the main summer competition season.

Unfortunately, the stupid litigiousness of this society has restricted our ability to expand the club activities. The UW has a field that used to be used as a full-length 90m archery range. We now cannot use the range because there is a public footpath close to the back of the range We have been told the only way we will ever be able to use that range again is if we put a solid roof and walls on it.

Washington state is NFAA affiliated, leaving us with very few possibilities. At the moment we train on sufferance of the club that I am a member of, but the situation is entirely unsatisfatory.

When I lived in the UK, I thought archery facilities were poor. In retrospect, we had it good, especially at Edinburgh, which has a permanent indoor range. It's not surprising the EU has been at or near the top of the UK archery for many years, and has supplied many Scottish Internationals.

At the UW, the club can practice for about two hours twice a week, with a further intra-mural shoot at which the club members have to supervise shooting once a week. In summer, we get to practice once or twice a week. Not really satisfactory.

I was on the James Madison University's archery team from 199-2003. The team is one of 3 Varsity archery teams in the US. Texas A&M's Women's team and Columbia's women's teams are the other Varsity teams. JMU does not offer scholarships but I know A&M does, only to the women. Because of the Varisty team status, JMU paid for our all of our travel, food, and lodging at tournaments. Our NAA memberships were also paid for. Equipment was available for begining archers and some equipment like arrows, tabs, vanes, etc. was covered by the team.

During Oct-March (indoor season) we had practice in our indoor range 3 times a week, but the range was open every day. During the rest of the year, we had an outdoor range and practice was 6 days a week. We had around 18 archers on the team. We didn't have membership fees/dues since it was a varsity team funded by the school.

I chose JMU because of the varisty status and funding from the school. Other schools are just club teams so they have to do a lot of fund raising to have enough financial resources to pay for their travel.
For more information and a complete list of US college teams visit http://www.usarchery.org/programs/Collegiate/collegiate.htm

-James

hmmmm. being from london, i can safely say that edin DO have it good! the University of London range is 1 boss wide, no heating, damp etc . but we get 24 hour access...we only started getting funding in september of 03, having had to fend for ourselves for 2 academic years. this year is MUCH better, as our ULU sports and societies VP is great. and i think i'm more organised than previous club captains .

Imperial college has a range they share with the rifle club, and they have three sessions a week indoors, of lots of hours, which is lucky. and it's warm.

outdoors, everyone in london (UL and IC) goes and shoots with The London Archers in Kensington Palace Gardens. after 4pm, providing there is no football on. this is a bit restrictive during early summer, which is when we do need the practice time to train for BUSA outdoors, and get the FITA season off to a good start.
there are alot of other GB unis with archery clubs, some very good, some not so, standards vary alot, as many rely on teaching themselves...other unis, who don't have clubs, have individuals who shoot with other clubs as I used to do when I first started uni in 2000.
UL has only been around for about 3 years, and an actual union club for 2. this is all off the top of my head tho, i can't remember everything!
but, there are plenty of us out there with >350 people at our last indoor champs in feb.

I'm glad to hear that JMU has maintained their varsity status, there was a rumor around last year that they were going to drop archery to a club status.

Yeah, JMU wanted to cut all the Olympic sports from the athletic program and use the money to make the Football Division 1 even though our football program was one of the worst teams in the conference . There was a big protest and petitions went around campus. In the end, the school just cut scholarships from all of the Olympic sports and classified the team as "B" class sports. I think funding was decreased and some teams had travel restrictions. Archery didn't have scholarships, so it didn't really affect us too much.

I am president of my University archery club at the University of Surrey. We have a group of about 15 archers. All of us started archery at university. We shoot for 4 hours a week indoors and in the summer we have our own exclusive field that we can use in daylight hours. It is big enough for 40 people to shoot a FITA so we are quite lucky. We had a clubhouse that was recently demolished

Hmm...

Meeting of Presidents - you coming up for BUTC, Barry?

I'm from York Uni and we have (I believe) the only University-owned permanent exclusive-use outdoor range in the country. 24/7 access, although it's not floodlit.

30-odd regular members, lots on the mailing list, and unfortunately a team that largely graduates at the end of this year.

James,
I'm glad that the students took the initiative to help keep archery and the other Olympic sports, a part of the athletics. I don't follow football at all, but it seems most of the Universities and colleges want to put all of their money into it, and forget about everything else. Good Work.

No university archery clubs here that I am aware of. There has been a tentative in one of them last year, but I don'nt know if they have succeeded. At least they do not show in competitions, and I have had no more news. Probably too much red tape and too little interest from the powers-that-be. Soccer (aaargh) is king.

I forgot to mention one more thing about JMU. Our athletic department also had academic advisors who were like our regular advisors, but also made sure we were within the NCAA eligibility regulations for GPA and etc. They also put together our class schedules and my athletic advisor knew all the good professors and easy professors for each class. Another benefit was that atheletes were also allowed to register for classes before some of the seniors to make sure our classes didn't conflict with our practice schedules. Most of the athletes I knew were able to get into all of their classes. My non-athlete friends had a hard time getting classes and some had to stay an extra semester or even a year.
If any of you in the US know a Jr. archer that's thinking about attending a school with an archery program, I would highly reccommend a university with a varisty team.

wow, don't think there's anything like that in the UK. sports people in university have to fit sport around study, not hte other way round. i think international athletes get extra help tho with regard to facilities and such like. but then in the US everything including varsity sport is so much more money orientated. not that football isn't!

in Ireland there are are 8 college archery clubs, there are only about 15 colleges in the country Archery in colleges peaked about 94 then decline to almost non-existance, it started reviving 3 years ago, and now is getting stronger every year....

practice times/conditions vary, from 2hrs a week at 9m, to 9 hrs a week at 18m. clubs have roughly 10 wooden beginner bows, and between 0-4 basic competition bows like W&W Strikers,

Although a fair few members have got their own bow in the last year or so. the shooting line is starting to look pretty classy. AeroTec/Matix with G3's and W&W Infinites and Samick Masters, although i should be using the singular with them

In clubs practices, some would have 40/50 people a week around Oct, which trails off after Christmas and by May exams we can be down to 5/10.
The first 2/3 weeks we can have 40/50 a day, which is hell on earth, try teaching 40/50 people how to shoot in 2hrs with only ~10 bows, none of which have ever even seen a bow before.... oh and often no coaches
Most of the teaching is done by the previous years students.

we have a intervarsity league, with about 5 competitions a year.
About 50-70 archers at each competition, facilites put a limit at about 70/80.

Most importantly people are enjoying themselves and archery. And scores are increasing every year. The next 2 years should see the clubs become well establised, many are only 1/2 years old, with a fair number of members getting coaching qualifications and possibly even a national team been formed. Not bad for little old Ireland

Aryzel: Do you know anything about the uni archery in N. Ireland? I know they're pretty good at field, but we never see any people from NI at the British Uni's competitions, which is a shame, cos there must be people there

looked at the Texas A&M site, ye have an archery room!!! its bigger than any of the sports halls of all of the colleges in Ireland!!
hell its bigger than half the colleges

can i move to texas?

looked at ye're scores for Indoor Nationals, we could match all but the top 3 scores, and maybe them in 2 years or so. by we i mean the top 10 archers from all colleges, but still not bad i think.

Our colleges generally give grants to each club in the college
Establised archery clubs tend to get about 1500 euro a year, 7/900euro goes on equipment, rest on the competitions. Members pay about half the competitions costs.

clubs starting out generaly can get some starting off equipment, target, stand, net end 3/4 wooden bows and 20/30 arrows and 2/4 hrs a week. and competition costs can be refunded by college once they are given receits.

Also clubs raise about half their money from membership fees at the start of the college year.

The colleges supply what they can, but time, space and money are limited. None of the colleges in Ireland could afford an archery range/room, only 2/3 colleges in the country have swimming pools